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Posts tagged with the category Jorge Taborga

The Dilemma of Our Time

Evolution is a constant in the human experience, although we interpret it in different manners. To some, particularly scientists, evolution is an accidental progression that yielded the cosmos, our planet and life. To others, it is a process created by a supreme being as part of a master plan. Regardless of our beliefs, life in the universe...

Myths About Leadership

In 2010 IBM published a study identifying complexity as the primary challenge for leaders. Intuitively, we can relate to this study’s premise. However, we may have different understandings of complexity ranging from mere complication to total chaos.
Complexity can be defined as a state of intricacy, complication, variety and...

Group Intelligence

Why does the intelligence of a group matter? What is group intelligence?
We spend most of our lives engaged with people in a myriad of activities. Our livelihoods depend on our interaction with others. For most of us living in modern societies, our success and quality of life are completely dependent on the various groups we belong to...

Can teams be treated as artifacts? Can they be treated as an individual?

During a recent business trip, I asked a couple of my colleagues if teams had their own subjectivity distinguishable from the subjectivity of their members. I’d just finished reading an article by Fred Kofman in which the author made the case that teams and organizations are “artifacts” and not true “holons.” For now...

Subjectivity, Confidence and Self-Determinism

My previous Rethinking Complexity posts have primarily dealt with subjects of organizational development, evolution, complexity and management. In this blog entry, I address a more basic topic, that of subjectivity. I firmly believe that we construct our own reality as we make meaning of life and as meaning changes with our life experiences....

Radical Management

In professional services company Deloitte and Touche's The 2011 Shift Index: Measuring the Forces of Long-Term Change, the company states that the return on assets (ROA) for US firms has steadily fallen to almost one quarter of 1965 levels. This study also concludes that less than 20 percent of workers are passionate about their jobs,...

Business Models and You

Southwest, Google, Apple, McDonalds, Amazon, Wal-Mart, Cragslist and many others have influential business models that have changed industries and the way we live. A business model is what we experience as stakeholders. Unless we are intimately connected to an organization, we do not know or understand its strategies or tactics but we...

Givers, Takers and Matchers, and Their Impact in Organizations

Bill Gates stated at the World Economic Forum in 2008 in Switzerland, “there are two great forces of human nature—self-interest and caring for others.”
It is easy to understand the impact of giving and taking at a global scale. Our world leaders show us the results of both. Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King amply...

Change, Flex and Intentionality

In a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy in 1789, Benjamin Franklin stated: “our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” I would add to this quote the fact that change is also certain. In a way, both death and taxes are...

Evolutionary Enlightenment

It does not take much analysis to conclude that we are at the threshold of much needed change.
We live in a world in crisis: economic, social, and environmental. Our nations are trapped in an economic model that no longer works. We believe that more technology, higher consumerism, and fewer regulations will fix our economies and life will be...

Nine Tests for the Design of Your 21st Century Organization

We seem to have limited understanding of how important it is to design organizations. This may come from our background of inheriting and not being able to design our own families. Most of us feel that we can only do our best in the context of our family organization and have little control on how it evolves.
The same is not true for the...

The Missing Dimensions and Context of “Org Charts”

Have you ever wondered how organizations evolve their structure? When is the optimal time to change the structure of an organization? What should the structure be and why? How should this structure be represented?
Organizational structures are typically represented as inverted trees with the root of the organization at the top and its adjacent...